Dangerous to Know (21 page)

“I'm afraid you won't have much opportunity to exercise your political clout,” Adam said dryly. “To cover her absence, the vice president has announced that she's taking a long-overdue two-week vacation to her home in the California Sierras.”

With real regret, Maggie abandoned her plans to ruthlessly streamline the entire federal government.

“Okay, what's the catch?”

One of Adam's dark brows rose.

“A two-week vacation in the High Sierras is too easy. I've got this tingly little feeling there's more to this role than what you've told me so far.”

The ghost of a smile curved Adam's lips. “Your tingles are on target.”

“They usually are,” she said with a trace of smugness.

His smile faded as he studied her face. “Early this morning, Taylor Grant received a death threat. Your mission while you're undercover will be to discover the source of this threat.”

The fact that Mrs. Grant had received a death threat didn't particularly surprise Maggie. A Secret Service contact she'd once worked with had mentioned that the White House switchboard screened upward of fifty thousand calls a day. A battery of skilled operators separated disgruntled voters from dangerous
malcontents and forwarded the “sinisters” for investigation. Maggie had been amazed at both the number and the content of the wacko calls that came over the switchboard. One, she'd been told, had ended with a long-drawn-out shriek and the sound of the caller blowing out his brains.

But in addition to outright kooks and psychotics who might target Taylor Grant, Maggie could name at least half dozen ultraright-wing groups the vice president had outraged. An intelligent, outspoken woman with strong liberal leanings, she'd been chosen as the president's running mate to balance his more conservative platform and to guarantee California's huge block of electoral votes. No, Maggie wasn't surprised Mrs. Grant had received a death threat.

Still, the Secret Service was charged with investigating such threats. Once again, Maggie puzzled over the reason for her involvement in this mission. She knew Adam too well to suppose that he'd called her in just because she resembled Taylor Grant in general size and shape.

“So what was different about this threat, that it activated an OMEGA response?” she asked.

“The call came in over the VP's personal line. Whoever made it knew how to bypass the filters that protect her from such calls, and how to electronically synthesize his voice.”

“His voice? If it was electronically disguised, how do we know the caller was a he?”

Adam regarded her steadily across the half acre of polished mahogany that constituted his desk. “Because the nature of the call suggests it was made by someone who knows Mrs. Grant well.
Very
well. Well enough to mention her husky little gasp at moments of extreme passion.”

“Extreme passion?” Maggie's jaw sagged once more. “Good grief, are you saying the vice president of the United States is being threatened by…by a former lover?”

“So it appears.”

While Maggie struggled to absorb this astounding information, Adam rose, a sheet of notepaper in his hand.

“This is a list the VP supplied of the men she's known intimately.”

Eyes wide, Maggie glanced down at the list he handed her. To her surprise, she saw that it was very short.
Amazingly
short, for a charismatic, dynamic woman who'd been a widow for over ten years. A woman who kept the press and the public titillated with a string of very handsome and very eligible escorts.

There were only four names on the list:

Harold Grant, the vice president's husband. The California sculptor had died from a rare form of bone cancer more than a decade ago.

Peter Donovan. Maggie couldn't place him, but the notation beside the name indicated that he had managed the VP's first campaign for governor.

Stoney Armstrong. That name she recognized immediately! The handsome, square-jawed movie star had escorted then-Governor Grant one whole, tempestuous spring. Their pictures had been splashed across every tabloid and every glossy magazine on several continents.

And…

Maggie's eyes widened. “James Elliot?” she gasped. “The secretary of the treasury?”

Adam nodded. “Elliot met Mrs. Grant after the president named him to head Treasury. Their liaison was reportedly short, but passionate.”

“So that's why OMEGA's running this show instead of the Secret Service!” Maggie exclaimed.

In addition to his responsibilities for the fiscal policies of the United States, the secretary of the treasury also directed the Secret Service. The idea that the supervisor of the very agency charged with protecting the vice president was one of three men suspected of threatening to kill her boggled Maggie's mind.

“Elliot himself suggested OMEGA take the lead in this case,” Adam said slowly. “He recognized that his liaison with Mrs. Grant, as brief as it was, compromised him in this case.”

“No kidding!”

Her forehead wrinkling, Maggie studied the short list once
again. Four names, three suspects—one of whom was a close personal friend of the president, and a member of his cabinet. Whew!

“There's another name that should be included on the list,” Adam added in a neutral tone.

“Really?” she murmured, still absorbing the implications of James Elliot's involvement. “Whose?”

“Mine.”

With infinite care, Maggie raised her eyes from the paper in her hand. As she searched Adam's face, a wave of conflicting emotions crashed through her.

Instinctive denial.

Instant awareness of the staggering impact this had on her mission.

And jealousy. Sheer, unadulterated jealousy. The old-fashioned green-eyed kind that was embarrassing to own up to but impossible to deny.

Taylor Grant was just the kind of woman who would attract Adam, Maggie admitted with painful honesty.

Polished. Sophisticated. At ease with politicians and princes. She moved in the same circles Adam did. Circles that Maggie, content with herself and her world, had never aspired to…until recently.

Summoning every ounce of professionalism she possessed, she sent him a cool look. “Well, that certainly puts a new twist on this mission. Suppose you tell me why the vice president didn't include your name on her list.”

A glimmer of emotion flickered through his eyes at her tart rejoinder. It might have been amusement or irritation, but it disappeared so quickly, Maggie couldn't tell. With Adam, she rarely could.

“Because I'm her future, not her past, lover,” he replied evenly.

For the space of several heartbeats, silence blanketed the spacious office. Maggie fabricated and rejected a dozen possible interpretations of his statement. Only one of them made any sense, and she wouldn't let herself believe that one.

“Come again?” she asked.

Navy cashmere contoured Adam's well-defined shoulders as he crossed his arms. “Until this point, I've enjoyed only a casual friendship with Taylor Grant.”

Maggie fought down a ridiculous rush of relief.

“That friendship is about to deepen.”

“It is?”

“It is.”

She cleared her throat. “Just how deep do you intend to take it?”

“As deep as necessary.”

She refused to acknowledge the slow curl of heat his words generated. “I think you'd better give me something more specific.”

“For the duration of the time you're undercover, I'll be your sole contact. We'll be together night and day for the next two weeks. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we're in love. Or at least in lust.”

Right. As far as the rest of the world was concerned. Maggie bit down on the inside of her lower lip and forced herself to concentrate as Adam continued.

“We'll debut this new relationship at the VP's last official Washington function before she leaves for California.”

“Which is?”

“A special benefit performance at the Kennedy Center tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?”

Maggie jumped off the corner of the conference table, her mind racing. She had less than twenty-four hours to transform herself into the person of the vice president of the United States. And into Adam Ridgeway's latest companion/lover.

At that moment, she wasn't sure which role daunted her—or thrilled her—more.

T
he next hours were the most intense Maggie had ever spent preparing for a mission.

A quick call to her father glossed over the reason for extended absence. Although she'd never told Red Sinclair about her work for OMEGA, he knew his daughter too well to believe that her civilian cover as an adjunct professor at D.C.'s Georgetown University occupied all her time.

Grumbling something about making clear to a certain reptile who was in charge during Maggie's absence, Red hung up and went back to the Superbowl.

After that, the OMEGA team moved at the speed of light.

Jake MacKenzie, code name Jaguar, arrived to act as headquarters controller for this operation. Since his marriage last year to a woman he'd rescued from a band of Central American rebels, Jake hadn't spent much time in the field, but he was one of OMEGA's most experienced agents. There wasn't anyone Maggie trusted more to orchestrate the behind-the-scenes support for this mission than the steely-eyed Jaguar.

With Jake beside her, she listened to the chilling tape of the early-morning phone call.

“You were so good,”
the eerie, electronic voice whispered,
“so beautiful. I can still hear your soft, sweet moan, that little sound you make when…”

Disgust twisted Maggie's mouth. That someone could speak of love in one breath, and death the next, sickened her.

“I must kill you. I don't want to, but I must. Try to understand….”

The call ended with a click, and Taylor Grant's swift, indrawn gasp.

“All right,” Jake said, his mouth grim. “Let's go over these dossiers on the three suspects one more time. Intel is champing at the bit to start your political indoctrination.”

The dossiers didn't give her any more insight into which of the three prominent men might want to assassinate the vice president, but Maggie studied their backgrounds in minute detail. Then she spent hours in briefings on the political personalities and issues the vice president dealt with daily.

Finally she closeted herself in a small room to study videotapes of Taylor Grant's speech patterns and gestures. Given her background in linguistics, Maggie soon had the vice president's voice down pat. Copying her gestures and facial expressions took a bit more work, but after hours in front of the mirror and a video camera, Maggie passed even Jake's and Adam's critical review.

At that point, the wizards of the wardrobe, as she termed OMEGA's field dress unit, whipped into action. A gel-like adhesive “bone” shaped her chin and nose to match Mrs. Grant's profile. A quick dye job and an expert cut resulted in the well-known stylish auburn shag. Tinted contacts duplicated the vice president's distinctive violet eyes.

Reducing Maggie's more generous figure to the vice president's exact proportions, however, required a bit more ingenuity. After taking some rather intimate measurements and stewing over the matter for a while, the pudgy, frizzy-haired genius who headed Field Dress produced a nineties version of a corset that
also, he proclaimed proudly, doubled as protective body armor. The thin Kevlar wraparound vest flattened Maggie's bust and trimmed several inches off her waist. The vice president's well-known preference for pleated pants and long tunic-style jackets would disguise her slightly fuller hips.

“Suck it in, Chameleon,” the chief wizard ordered sternly, yanking on the adjustable straps at the waist of the bodysuit-corset.

Maggie clutched at the edge of a table. “Hey! Go easy there,” she said over one shoulder. “I've got to be able to breathe for the next few weeks, you know.”

“Don't panic,” he replied, grunting a little with effort. “This baby should fit more easily in a day or so.”

“It should?” she gasped. “Why?”

He backed away, surveying his handiwork. “A couple of days on the VP's diet will shave a few pounds off you.”

Maggie straightened and took a few shallow, experimental breaths. “The vice president is on a diet?”

“Uh-oh. You didn't know?”

“Intelligence is going to cover her personal habits as soon as we're through here. What kind of a diet?”

“You'd better let intel brief you,” the chief replied evasively. Not meeting her eyes, he held out a cobalt blue St. John knit tunic with a double row of gold buttons.

Maggie poked her head through the square-cut neck of the tunic and eyed the pudgy chief suspiciously.

“What kind of diet?” she repeated. “Come on, spill it.”

“She's, uh, a vegetarian.”

“You've got to be kidding!”

“It's true, I swear. It's not public knowledge because Mrs. Grant doesn't want to get the beef and poultry lobby groups up in arms.”

“Wonderful,” Maggie muttered.

While she wouldn't exactly classify herself as a junk food junkie—after all, she did enjoy sampling Washington's wonderful diversity of restaurants—Maggie preferred hamburgers and pizzas to vegetables any day. In fact, she'd recently discovered
that she was violently allergic to a distant relative of the carrot family.

“It's only for two weeks,” the frizzy-haired wizard reminded her.

“Oh, sure. What's a mere two weeks without real food?”

Sucking in her tummy to ease the bite of the constrictive corset, Maggie headed for the laboratory in the basement of the town house to check out her equipment for this mission.

A spear of regret lanced through her when she surrendered her faithful Smith & Wesson .22 automatic. Although small, when loaded with hollow-point long-rifle stingers, the weapon could cause as much tissue damage as a .38 Police Special. But not even the high-tech masterminds in the Special Devices Lab could figure out how to shield her Smith & Wesson from the sophisticated security screens that surrounded the vice president. In its place, Maggie was issued a palm-size, .22-caliber derringer.

“This is the same model Mrs. Grant keeps in her California home,” the chief of Special Devices told her. “It's single-action, with a spur trigger, and carries five rounds.”

After a few practice rounds at the firing range, Maggie felt comfortable with the derringer. But she felt decidedly uncomfortable with the fact that she wouldn't have a weapon in her possession until she reached California. For the first time, she was going out on a mission naked. All she had to protect her from a potential assassin was her training, her instincts and her wits.

And Adam.

He joined her at the range a few moments later. The acrid scent of cordite filled the air as Maggie watched him test fire the small, rapid-fire Heckler & Koch 9 mm Special Devices had issued him. Legs spread, arms lifted, he pumped round after round into the targets. His tight expression underscored the grim reality of her mission.

Back in the lab, Special Devices fitted Maggie with the combination directional beeper and body bug they'd hurriedly devised for this mission. To her amazement, she discovered that
they'd soldered a state-of-the-art miniaturized radio transmitter/ receiver to the inside of a wide gold wedding band.

“It's identical to the one Mrs. Grant wears,” the technician explained.

Maggie turned the heavy gold band over and over in the palm of her hand, but couldn't find any trace of the tiny embedded device. She did, however, see the inscription engraved on the inside. Her heart thumped painfully as she read the words
Now, and forever.

How tragic, she thought. The woman who wore this ring, or one identical to it, hadn't had much of a forever with her husband. Some years older than his attractive young wife, Harold Grant had died while still in his mid-thirties. They'd had only a few good years together, yet his widow had never remarried, and still wore her wedding band.

“Because the bug is so small,” the head of Special Devices explained, “its range is more limited than we'd like. You'll be able to communicate only with the chief, who'll relay the necessary information to OMEGA headquarters via his own, more powerful device.”

“Which is why we won't be more than a few miles apart during this entire operation,” Adam said, coming to stand beside her. He took the ring from her unresisting fingers to examine it himself.

Maggie frowned, not entirely sure she liked this turn of events. She was used to operating independently in the field. Very independently. The idea of passing all her communications through Adam was a little unsettling.

She slanted him a quick speculative look as he hefted the gold band in his palm. She'd worked for and with Adam Ridgeway for three years now. In the process, she'd learned to respect his sharp, incisive knowledge of field operations. Like the other OMEGA operatives, she trusted him with her life every time he sent her into the field.

Still, for all her personal and very private admiration of Adam, Maggie had to admit they sometimes clashed professionally. They'd had more than a few disagreements in the past over her
occasionally unorthodox methods in the field. In fact, the only times any of the OMEGA agents had ever seen Adam come close to losing his legendary cool were during Maggie's mission debriefs.

Well, the next few weeks would no doubt provide a severe test of his restraint, she thought. She was the field operative on this mission, and she fully intended to follow her instincts, just as she always had. Her generous mouth curved in a private smile. She'd always hoped to be on the scene when the iron-spined Adam Ridgeway's control finally slipped its leash.

Maybe, just maybe, she would be.

He caught her sideways glance. “Let's see how well this works,” he said, holding out his hand.

A funny little quiver darted through her stomach as she placed her left hand in Adam's right. His palm felt warm and smooth beneath her fingertips, like supple, well-tanned leather. Nibbling on her lower lip, she watched him slide the gold band over the knuckle of her ring finger. When it slipped into place, his hand closed over hers.

Startled by both the tensile strength of his hold and the intimacy of the gesture, Maggie glanced up at the face so close to her own. His blue eyes locked with hers.

A voice at her shoulder jerked her attention back to the hovering technicians. “How does it feel?”

Her hand slipped from Adam's hold. “Fine.”

Actually, the heavy circle felt odd. Unfamiliar. Maggie rarely wore jewelry, and when she did, it was more the funky, fun kind. This solid ounce of precious metal weighting her hand was a new experience for her. Using her thumb, she twisted the ring around her finger. It fit perfectly. Not too tight, not too loose. Yet when she tried to remove it, the thing balked at her knuckle.

“The inside of the band is curved to slide on easily, but that sucker won't ever come off,” the team chief told her with a smug grin.

Her newly dyed dark red brows snapped together. “What?”

“Not without a special lubricant.”

“Wait a minute. This special lubricant isn't another one of
your no-fail formulas, is it? Like the solvent that was supposed to instantly remove the tattoo you put on my chin? It took three months for the thing to fade completely.”

The technician waved a hand to dismiss that minor inconvenience. “The lubricant will work, I'm sure.”

“You're
sure?
You mean you haven't tested it yet?”

“As a matter of fact, we haven't quite developed it yet. But we will by the time this mission is over. Besides, the chief suggested we size the ring like that.”

“Oh, he did?” She turned to the man at her side, her brows arching.

“So you won't have to worry about losing it,” Adam said easily. “And I don't have to worry about losing you.”

 

After another round with intelligence and a final mission prebrief with Jake and Adam, Maggie pulled on the cobalt blue pea jacket that matched her designer knit outfit and slid into the back seat of a limo. A slow, simmering excitement percolated through her veins during the ride to the target point. She locked her gloved hands in her lap to keep from beating a nervous tattoo on the leather armrest and stared out at a capital still blanketed by a layer of white, now more slush than snow.

They'd decided to make the switch at the vice president's official residence. The old executive office building, where the VP's office and staff were located, swarmed with people all day and far into the night. By contrast, the pillared, three-story residence tucked away on the wooded grounds of the naval observatory in northwest Washington had limited access and much less traffic.

Outside of OMEGA, only three people knew exactly when and how the switch would take place. The vice president, of course. Lillian Roth, Mrs. Grant's personal assistant and dresser. And the SAIC—the special agent in charge of her personal security detail—William “Buck” Evans.

Maggie, Adam and Jake had debated strenuously whether or not to read Buck Evans into the script. With the treasury secretary himself under suspicion, they hesitated to include anyone
in his chain of command in this deep-cover operation. But Mrs. Grant had insisted, and the president himself had concurred.

Evans had been assigned to the vice president's detail since the early days of the campaign. At one whistle-stop, he'd thrown himself in front of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound crazy who objected to her stand in favor of government subsidies for AIDS research and treatment. In the ensuing brawl, the protester had chewed off the tip of Buck's ear. The agent had declined cosmetic surgery, claiming that the mangled ear added to his character. From that day on, he'd been permanently assigned to Taylor Grant's detail, and she trusted him with her life.

Besides, the vice president had said tartly, without Buck's assistance, it would be impossible to pull off this masquerade. As SAIC, he screened the agents assigned to her protective detail, approved all security procedures and set the duty schedules. He could ensure that the people accompanying the VP on her long-planned vacation were the ones least familiar with the twists and turns of her personality. He would also provide the real Mrs. Grant with protection during her secret treaty negotiations at Camp David.